Record industry launches online file ID system

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From europemedia net

Record industry launches online file ID system
11/02/2003
Editor: Leigh Phillips

The international recording industry has launched a new identification system to facilitate and simplify the electronic delivery of music over the internet.

The record industry hopes that the Global Release Identifier (Grid) is a step along the road of successfully delivering a ‘legitimate’ online music delivery system that can compete with P2P networks like Kazaa or Morpheus.

As music is increasingly being offered in electronic formats, the new Grid system aims to accurately track and identify what music has been created, assigned, licensed and distributed.

Grid, in development by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America over the past two years, is the international recording industry's standard for the identification of releases of music for electronic distribution. It can identify singles, album tracks, groups of tracks and multi-media releases that are distributed electronically.

The system is open to everyone involved in the delivery of audio content including record companies, third party distributors such as legitimate online music services, and retailers.

Grid is, in effect, an electronic version of the Universal Product Code (UPC) that currently identifies all CDs - but the electronic version is designed with a massively increased numbering capacity. One identifier gives any individual company using the system the potential to allocate codes for in excess of 30m different releases.

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